Social Media: My Favourite Tools

A social media consultant since several years now, I’ve seen the requirements for this position change much over the last few years. From being a purely text based content creation job, it has evolved into a full-time vocation requiring multi-tasking skills, design thinking and a more holistic marketing approach.

The tools of the trade have, very obviously, evolved over the years from MS Word and blogging sites to include a wide array of platforms. My three favorites, over the years, highs and lows, which have helped me stay on the top:

HootSuite: a social media management tool, which allows you to manage multiple platforms and profiles from a single dashboard. You can schedule your posts, follow-unfollow and interact with followers all from within HootSuite. It’s been a life saviour, especially when the holidays are coming up!

Pixabay: who pays for stock images any more? Pixabay has 530000 high quality photos, illustrations, and vector graphics – all free, for commercial use! The site has bailed me out EVERY time I needed an image to illustrate my social media posts. I’ve finally started buying the contributors’ a coffee every now and then as my small token of gratitude!

Canva: the solution to all social media posts. Canva allows you to create designs for web and print: graphics, presentations, social media posts (with customised sizes for each platform), infographics et al. I can no longer imagine being dependent on a professional designer to quickly churn out my social media posts, as is obvious on my Canva profile.